Behind the scenes at American’s Lost and Found department at ORD

Jon Hilkevitch of the Chicago Tribune interviewed Krystyna Dorsey, the lady who runs American’s Chicago’s O’Hare Lost and Found department. For the last 17 years it’s been her job to reunite passengers with their belongings:

As she spoke to a reporter, a man entered the office and identified himself as Bob Becker, saying he had received a phone message from Dorsey advising him about an iPad that he had left on an American flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the day before.

“Oh, Bob Becker, hello. You made it easy for us to find you,” Dorsey said.

The iPad was not password-protected and it was linked to the iCloud storage service, which told Becker the location of his device and also put it into “lost” mode, so his name and phone number appeared on the screen.

“I can’t thank you enough,” said Becker, a Chicagoan who is an American frequent-flier Platinum member. “I’ve never lost anything before and I was really worried.”

“It makes me happy to see a big smile on your face,” Dorsey said.

People lose items ranging from iPads to glass eyeballs, even sex toys. Here advice to travelers:

…tag or somehow otherwise identify their expensive belongings, even if only with a phone number. Don’t forget to include the area code, she said.